Design007 Magazine

Design007-Jan2018

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 54 of 121

JANUARY 2018 I DESIGN007 MAGAZINE 55
conference session we have, so we give prior-
ity in some ways to someone who's chairing a
standards meetingand chairing a session. We'll
give them the power to move things around.
Goldman: Continuing with the conference, are
there any new tracksor hot topics this time
around?
Bath: We have some that are generally consid-
ered hot topic sessions. There will be sessions
on bottom termination components, which is
a growing technology. We have the emerging
technology session where we cover wearables,
printed electronics, and emerging technologies
like stretchable applications, wash-ability of
materials for e-textiles, and an overview of XR
virtual reality or augmented reality. That's a
nice session. We have the traditional PCB fab-
rication and assembly sessions and component
reliability. We have voiding sessions, which is
a hot topic in terms of voiding areas for BGAs
and components and how to minimize voids.
We have a session on jetting, which is a newer
technology where people are looking at non-
contact dispensing for solder paste.
Then we have the traditional sessions, but
some of those like surface insulation resistance
(SIR) are still continuing issues. There are still
challenges in terms of not just existing materi
-
als, but developing materials, masking materi-
als, flux residue issues, etc. We'll have session(s)
on r
eliability of plated through-hole
materials,
issues with reliability in terms of degradation
and glass epoxy degradation. We're trying to
cover things that are challenging, or issues that
are coming up in the industry.
Goldman: Of course, all the papers are fresh and
dealing with the latest technology.
Bath: Exactly. We also have a session on creep
corrosion, where we have experts from IBM
talking about the new developments in corro-
sion testing. Typically, you've got your alloy
sessions, your high-speed/ high-frequency ses-
sions, and where we're going on that. Then
surface finish reliability, where we'll talk about
recommendations for increasing shelf life
with PCB finishes. A paper we have for the
cleaning session is looking at cleaning chal-
lenges when we get to very fine powder sizes
for solder paste.
Goldman: How clean is clean, right?
Bath: How clean is clean, and how clean can
you get it? What are the challenges of remov-
ing flux residue? We have solder paste testing
development on where we are in terms of the
test technologies and J-standard 005, what test
vehicles you can use for solder paste evalua-
tions, and paste development for laser soldering
applications. It's the kind of things that discuss
new applications coming up, like miniaturiza-
tion. We're getting smaller and smaller paste
deposits. Some of the components to assem-
ble are temperature-sensitive so reflow ovens
can't be used so you may have to use laser or
other non-contact applications to reflow those
locations.
We've got rework application sessions.
Rework is still interesting and still coming up.
Session speakers will talk about the challenges
for big board rework and optimizing bottom
heat for manual rework applications. Then
there are the typical copper foil issues, alloy
reliability, and test/X-ray inspection issues.
For instance, the impact of X-ray on prepro-
grammed managed NAND devices and under-
standing if the X-ray is causing any radiation
damage to thedevices with best practices.
IPC APEX EXPO 2018 PRE-SHOW SPECIAL COVERAGE